The Beach at Painter’s Cove: A Novel

Shelley Nobel’s The Beach at Painter’s Cove is the story of four generations of Whitaker women. The cast of characters is a varied mix of crazy and quirky: there’s Leonore, the matriarch, who is getting too old to live by herself; Fae, Leonore’s sister-in-law, whom everyone thinks is disturbed; Jillian, Leonore’s aging actress daughter, who left her own daughters with her mother long ago; Jillian’s oldest daughter, Vivienne, who has left her children with Leonore and disappeared; Issy, Jillian’s youngest daughter, who’s been left to pick up the pieces of what is left of her crazy family; Stephanie, Amanda, and Griffin, Vivienne’s children, who are confused and scared because both their parents have vanished.

When Issy gets a call from her niece, Amanda, she is shocked that her grandmother is not doing well, but even more shocked to learn that her sister has dumped her kids at the Muses with their great-grandmother. In a panic, Issy leaves her job in New York to head to Connecticut to try to untangle a mess not of her own making. Nothing could prepare Issy for the twists and turns that will come her way while trying to help out too many members of an eccentric family.

The author does a wonderful job of developing the complex relationships between all the characters. With a few plot twists and surprises, The Beach at Painter’s Cove is an excellent beach read.